For the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18–25), the members of the NC Conference Christian Unity and Interreligious Relationships (CUIR) committee are sharing daily devotions rooted in Ephesians 4.

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Day 8 – Ephesians 4:12-13
[The gifts he gave were] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

As we celebrate Holy Communion, the clearest expression of Christian unity we have this side of Heaven, we pray these words: “Make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world….” When we approach the Table of Grace, we gather with others like us and those who are unlike us, with those with whom we agree and those with whom we disagree, with those who are related by our blood and those who are related by the blood of Christ. And in that gathering, we not only remember what Christ has done for us, we embody Jesus’ hope for us.

Jesus prayed that we might be one, and Paul pleaded with followers of The Way to practice unity, so that we might live into “the full stature of Christ.” Throughout his life and ministry, in all that he said and did, Jesus gave himself in love. He reached out with hands of healing, he shared his teaching, he gave himself in his presence among the poor, the outcasts, those inside and outside his faith community, those of his country and those who were foreigners. Now, to state the obvious, you and I are not Jesus. We are just not able to give ourselves to the people of this world in the same way that Jesus gave himself, yet at the very same time, we are Jesus, we are the Body of Christ for the world. So, as we live into that paradox, we just keep at it – we keep trying, we keep practicing; and the more we practice, the more we learn to love like Jesus, concentrating on what we can give to the world rather than what we can get out of it.

The good news is that, when we are trying to learn how to love each other the way that Jesus loved us, we are not alone in this work. We have the power of God at work through the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit with us and in us and through us. As Jesus has promised, the Father has sent another Advocate to strengthen us and to lift up our hearts. More than that, the Spirit is already at work in the world, preparing the way ahead of us. We are not alone: God is with us; but we are also not alone because we have one another. The unity of faith is a gift.

A Question to Consider

How are we growing in our knowledge of Christ and allowing that knowledge to shape our actions, thoughts and relationships?

Prayer

Our Holy God, who exists eternally in the unity of the Trinity, bind us together as those who are created in your image and called by Christ, with whom you are revealed as Father, in whom you are known as the Son, and through whom we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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